The swastika is a cross with its arms bent at right angles to either the right or left. In geometric terms, it is known as an irregular icosagon or 20-sided polygon. The word is derived from the Sanskrit "svastika" and means "good to be". In Indo-European culture it was a mark made on people or objects to give them good luck.

It has been around for thousands of years, particularly as a Hindu symbol in the holy texts, to mean luck, Brahma or samsara (rebirth). It can be clockwise or anti-clockwise and the way it points in all four directions suggests stability. Sometimes it features a dot between each arm.

Nowadays it is commonly seen in Indian artwork and current and ancient Hindu architecture, and in the ruins of the ancient city of Troy. It has also been used in Buddhism and Jainism, plus other Asian, European and Native American cultures.

he British author Rudyard Kipling, who was strongly influenced by Indian culture, had a swastika on the dust jackets of all his books until the rise of Nazism made this inappropriate. It was also a symbol used by the scouts in Britain, although it was taken off Robert Baden-Powell's 1922 Medal of Merit after complaints in the 1930s.

The Finnish Air Force also used it as its official symbol in World War II, and it still appears on medals, but it had no connection with the Nazi use. It is rarely seen on its own in Western architecture, but a design of interlocking swastikas is part of the design of the floor of the cathedral of Amiens, France.

Swastika is also a small mining town in northern Ontario, Canada, about 580 kilometres north of Toronto. Attempts by the government of Ontario to change the town's name during World War II were rejected by residents.

But it is its association with the National Socialist German Workers Party in the 1930s which is etched on the minds of Western society. Before Hitler, it was used in about 1870 by the Austrian Pan-German followers of Schoenerer, an Austrian anti-Semitic politician.

Its Nazi use was linked to the belief in the Aryan cultural descent of the German people. They considered the early Aryans of India to be the prototypical white invaders and hijacked the sign as a symbol of the Aryan master race. The Nazi party formally adopted the swastika - what they called the Hakenkreuz, the hooked cross - in 1920. This was used on the party's flag , badge, and armband.

In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler wrote: "I myself, meanwhile, after innumerable attempts, had laid down a final form; a flag with a red background, a white disk, and a black swastika in the middle. After long trials I also found a definite proportion between the size of the flag and the size of the white disk, as well as the shape and thickness of the swastika."

The country's state-run media has been using the occasion to hail the merits of the government's one child policy. Rights groups overseas have criticised the policy as coercive and draconian. China's population is expected to increase by about 10 million a year, hitting a peak of 1.46 billion in the 2030s.

The newborn baby's overjoyed father was quoted as saying his son would be blessed his whole life. Planners in the world's most populous country are not so happy. One official was quoted in the China Daily as saying that 1.3 billion citizens would put great pressure on the economy, society, resources and the environment.

State media are boasting that the strict family planning policy meant the 1.3 billion mark was reached four years later than predicted. The paper admitted the one child policy had been badly applied in some places.
It did not give any details, though rights groups overseas accuse the authorities of forcing women to have abortions.

The traditional preference for boys has also led to female foetuses being aborted. One hundred and twenty boys are now registered as born for every 100 girl babies. Yet the newspaper said the one child policy should continue to be endorsed.

Outside the famous façade of the treasurer's house, camel traders mixed with horsemen. Nabateans in traditional costume set up a series of market stands. A few hundred metres away, a company of legionnaires marched into the Roman auditorium to display their skills. Then on came the gladiators, for a fight to the death. It was all part of Petra's bid to win a place among the New Seven Wonders of the World in a competition that is currently in progress.

They call it the "rose red city half as old as time". The slogan could have been written by an advertising copywriter from Madison Avenue. Actually the line was coined by one of the earliest tourists to visit, after the city was rediscovered by the outside world in the early 19th century. Ever since then, visitors have been coming from around the globe. They cannot fail to be staggered by the magical combination of man-made and natural beauty.

Your breath is taken away the moment you emerge from the narrow gorge that forms the main entrance. In front of you, the majestic classical façade of the treasurer's house, carved out of the rock face. Down the spectacular valley the wonders continue. The 4,000-seat auditorium, also hewn from the rich red sandstone. Tombs and places of worship towering down from the cliff faces on either side. All this was made possible by the engineering skills of the Nabateans, more than 2,000 years ago. They channelled water down a series of ceramic-lined culverts, making life possible in this arid hideaway.

For the Jordanians involved in the re-enactment, that all means that Petra is a natural choice for the New Seven Wonders of the World. "Of course," explained Adam al-Samady, one of the "Romans" on parade. "It's unbelievable. To me, of course, it is just one of a kind." Jordan is taking this competition very seriously. It is more than just a bit of fun. The tourist trade here has been hit hard by recent troubles across the Middle East, devastated even according to many in the trade that I have spoken to.

Adam al-Samady explained the importance of winning the contest. "It is very important, because Jordan is a small country whose whole economy is based on tourism," he said. "Unfortunately during these past five years with the war in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, tourism has been completely dead. If Petra becomes one of the seven wonders of the world, I think there will be a big change." It is a tough contest, though. Petra is on a shortlist of 21, but every one of the other contenders would also be worth a place in the last seven: the Taj Mahal, the Pyramids, Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, to name but four.

The result is to be announced on 7 July: which just happens to be 7/7/07....

Google Earth states it demarcates its maps according to international standards, but no Israeli-Palestinian negotiations even the failed Camp David final-status negotiations in 2000 ever placed the Temple Mount within Palestinian territory.

The United Nations considers eastern sections of Jerusalem, recaptured by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War, to be "disputed." The Israeli Knesset officially annexed the entire city of Jerusalem as its capital in 1980.
"Google Earth is reinforcing lies," Rabbi Chaim Rechman, director of the international department at Israel's Temple Institute, told WND.

"The Muslims have engaged in a systemic campaign to re-write history and erase any traces of Judaism from the Temple Mount in total disregard to all actual archeological and historic evidence," he continued." Now Google Earth has given in to this campaign."

Mort Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, accused Google Earth of encouraging terrorism.
"When the Arab terrorists see Google Earth's falsification of geographic realities, they will be appeased and encouraged because these kinds of lying maps send the message that their disinformation campaigns and their terrorism work," Klein told WND.

Indeed, Abu Nasser, second-in-command of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group, said he was "thrilled" by Google Earth's depictions.
"Congratulations to Google Earth," Abu Nasser told WND.
"We congratulate Google and the American people in making this very important change in the Middle East.

The Al Aqsa Mosque (located on the Temple Mount) is part of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is part of Palestine. If such a big institution like Google corrected these historical mistakes on maps, maybe we can bring about a change in the depictions of Palestine by the American media, which is controlled by the Zionists."

According to Abu Nasser, whose terror group says it is trying to liberate the Al Aqsa Mosque, the Jewish Temple "never existed." "At least not on the area Jews now call the Temple Mount.," he said. "Maybe a Temple existed somewhere, but not in Jerusalem. The Temple Mount exists only in the imaginations of the Jews and Americans."

Abu Nasser's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades is the declared "military wing" of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party. The Brigades, together with the Islamic Jihad terror group, has taken responsibility for every suicide bombing in Israel the past two years, including an attack in Tel Aviv in April that killed American teenager Daniel Wultz and nine Israelis.

The revelation's about Google Earth's Mideast map follow media reports this week insurgents in Iraq are using Google's satellite imagery to attack British bases and troops. Intelligence sources quoted by Britain's Daily Telegraph said raids of insurgents last week found printouts of Google satellite photographs of British bases, including details such as toiled blocks, Land Rover parking, and tented areas.

One of the photographs, taken of a hotel housing a British regiment, had the camp's longitude and latitude written on the back, the newspaper said. "This is evidence, as far as we are concerned, for planning terrorist attacks," an intelligence officer told The Daily Telegraph. "Who would otherwise have Google Earth imagery of one of our bases?"

In 2004, marine scientists estimated that industrial fleets have fished out at least 90 percent of all large ocean predators, including tuna, marlin, swordfish, sharks, cod, halibut, skates, and flounder, in just the past 50 years. With the depletion of wild fish schools, virtually all growth in the global catch today comes from farmed fish.

The developing world makes more money from seafood than from coffee, cocoa, tea, or any other agricultural commodity. Shrimp alone counts for 20 percent of global seafood trade. Today, fishers from developing countries catch three out of four wild fish (by weight). Many of the 200 million people who depend on fisheries for a living - fishing families, boat builders, fishmongers - cannot afford to eat the fish they catch and handle.

According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, an average of 9.4 million hectares of forest (roughly the size of Portugal) was lost annually during the 1990s. Africa and the Caribbean had the highest rates of deforestation, each losing 0.8 percent of total forested area per year. Major logging countries also suffer from rapid deforestation: Indonesia loses nearly 2 million hectares of forest annually, while Brazil lost 2.3 million hectares of Amazon forest between August 2002 and 2003.
Deforestation remains a serious issue globally, since forests are crucial in regulating the planet's carbon and hydrological flows and provide a host of local environmental services. Land use changes primarily deforestation accounted for an estimated one-third of global carbon emissions between 1850 and 1998.

Average annual economic losses from such events have risen from $26 billion in the 1980s to $67 billion over the last decade.Average annual fatalities due to weather, meanwhile, jumped from 22,000 in the 1980s to 33,000 in the 1990s.

Castilla-Leon has some 2.1 million hectares of cultivated land and produces nearly a third of Spain's wheat and a quarter of its barley. "These plagues are cyclical and are stopped by snow and frost, but this year the voles are not disappearing. Quite the opposite.

They breed at a phenomenal rate," Donaciano Dujo, the regional president of farm union ASAJA. The voles eat the leaves of grain crops, the seeds of pulses and like to burrow under the roots of alfalfa. An ASAJA spokeswoman said there were reports that the number of vultures and eagles in the region had dropped, meaning there were fewer predators around.

Dujo said there were just too many voles for predators to cope with. "What people have been seeing is that a stork will come along and eat three or four voles, but then it's had enough." Farmers have alerted the regional government and asked for help in curbing the outbreak, Dujo said.

"It will permit us to underpin investments, above all in those countries whose governments are making efforts to liberate themselves from the (US) imperialist yoke," Chavez said. "This fund, my brother," the Venezuelan president said, referring affectionately to Ahmadinejad, "will become a mechanism for liberation. Death to US imperialism!" Chavez said.

Ahmadinejad, who is starting a tour of left-leaning countries in the region, called it a "very important" decision that would help promote "joint cooperation in third countries," especially in Latin America and Africa. It was not clear if both Chavez and Ahmadinejad were referring to investment in infrastructure, social and energy projects or other types of financing.

Chavez said on Saturday that Iran and Venezuela had agreed to back a further oil production cut in the cartel to stem a recent fall in crude prices.

Some critics of the SPP see it leading toward a breakdown of national sovereignty and representative government, fearing it will lead inexorably toward a European Union-style regionalization for North America.

"Now that we see books being published by SPP, how can anyone deny that the Bush administration is involved in a process of North American deep integration?" asks Jerome R. Corsi, author and WND columnist who is writing a book on the movement. "SPP is creating North American regulations that replace and supersede U.S. regulations in a wide range of policy areas. Just the three-language format of the full colour production is enough to let readers know that the Bush administration considers our appropriate regulatory scope to be North American in nature. We no longer have a U.S. energy policy, for instance, we have a North American energy policy."

Corsi, known as one of the chief critics of plans for a North American Union, said:
"Since 2001 and the formation of the Prosperity Partnership with Mexico, trilateral working group activity in North America has been gaining momentum. After the declaration of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America in Waco, Texas, on March 23, 2005, we have a full-fledged shadow bureaucracy that is setting up the regulatory structure for what could easily evolve into a full regional government."

"Despite the advanced stage of SPP working group activity," Corsi said, "few U.S. congressmen or senators have any idea that SPP working groups are producing a North American regulatory structure. I still find myself going into the offices of congressmen and senators on Capitol Hill and having to work with staff to show them SPP websites they never have seen before, even though some of their bosses sit on committees that are supposed to be responsible for oversight of the SPP activities I am showing them for the first time."

"SPP is one of the best kept secrets in Washington," Corsi told WND, "even though SPP has a website, there are SPP websites embedded in the websites of many government agencies, and now SPP is publishing full-color books in three languages. Yet, nobody in Washington has bothered to hold a single SPP hearing. Meanwhile, we are being led into regional government by bureaucrats whose mission is to create North American policies, not to worry about the sovereignty of the United States."

The SPP website contains somewhat different versions of the 2005 prosperity agenda and security agenda, as well as the 2006 prosperity agenda and the security agenda.
"This is no conspiracy," Corsi continued. "Conspiracies are conducted in secret. Now, SPP even publishes books documenting the North American deep integration agenda the SPP working groups are advancing day-by-day."

The data consolidate news last month that the value of euro notes in circulation had overtaken the dollar for the first time. Outstanding debt issued in the euro was worth the equivalent of $4,836bn at the end of 2006 compared with $3,892bn for the dollar, according to International Capital Market Association data.

Outstanding euro-denominated debt accounts for 45 per cent of the global market, compared with 37 per cent for the dollar. New issuance last year accounted for 49 per cent of the global total. That represents a startling turnabout from the pattern seen in recent decades, when the US bond market dwarfed its European rival: as recently as 2002, outstanding euro-denominated issuance represented just 27 per cent of the global pie, compared with 51 per cent for the dollar.

The rising role of the euro comes amid growing issuance by debt-laden European governments. However, the main factor is a rise in euro-denominated issuance by companies and financial institutions.One factor driving this is that European companies are moving away from their traditional reliance on bank loans and embracing the capital markets to a greater degree.

Another is that the creation of the single currency in 1999 has permitted development of a deeper and more liquid market, consolidated by a growing eurozone.This has made it more attractive for issuers around the world to raise funds in the euro market. And, more recently, the trend among some Asian and Middle Eastern countries to diversify their assets away from the dollar has further boosted this trend.

René Karsenti, executive president of ICMA, said: It is the stable interest rates in Europe that have helped and the fact that [the euro] has strengthened and shown resilience. Since the start of 2003, the European Central Bank's main interest rate has fluctuated only 1.5 percentage points, ranging from a low of 2 per cent in the middle of that year to 3.5 per cent, its rate today.

In comparison, the Fed funds rate, the main US interest rate, has fluctuated 4.25 percentage points, ranging from 1 per cent in the middle of 2003 to 5.25 per cent, its level today. The euro has also risen to trade around $1.30 against the dollar, from around parity three years ago. Sterling issuance has grown in the past three years, reinforcing its attraction as a niche currency among some investors. The yen, in comparison, has fallen out of favour.

Overall, international capital markets have doubled in size in terms of bond issuance during the past six years.

Tests on the volcano show Vesuvius is a ticking time bomb. Ten kilometres beneath its crater there is a 400 sq km chamber of molten magma. When it forces its way through the fractures of the Earth's crust the result will be disastrous. The authorities would get between 20 days and two weeks' notice. But the dilemma that would face those implementing the plan is when to start their evacuation.

But vulcanologist Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo from the Vesuvius Observatory says civil emergency planners are still ignoring the worst-case scenario "It is politically negative to talk about the cataclysmic event," he says. "The authorities have been told what could happen. But the evacuation plans they have in place still do not go anywhere near far enough." From a helicopter we could see the difficulty the civil planning authorities will face.

The slopes of the volcano are covered with farms, small towns and high-rise flats. The so-called "red zone" - the area that would be evacuated first - includes 18 towns. And they are connected by narrow, winding and often heavily congested roads.

When this next explosive eruption comes - as one day it will - this will not just be Campania and Italy's problem, it will be Europe's as well. There will be three million refugees. It will change climates and weather patterns across the continent. Iit will turn the green, fertile landscape around Naples into a lifeless desert.,

But this was no admission of defeat. Quite the contrary: it was a show of humility very deliberately deployed - an attempt to rally Americans behind an engagement in Iraq that will be longer, deeper and more costly in money and blood. The central focus of President Bush's "new way forward" in Iraq is Baghdad. Eighty per cent of the violence in Iraq, we were told, takes place within a 30-mile (48km) radius of Baghdad.

The president said that Baghdad had not been secured in the past because "there were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighbourhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents". A new security plan for Baghdad - formulated by the Iraqi government - had been presented to Mr Bush when he travelled to Jordan for a meeting with the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri Maliki, late last year, according to a senior administration official.

The White House and the US military had reviewed it, said the president, and supported it. And it is this plan that is at the heart of the president's strategy. The plan, in essence, calls for a new battle for Baghdad - a battle conducted by Iraqi troops in the lead, with Americans in support. The number of US and Iraqi combat troops in Baghdad will be doubled.

Clear. Hold. Build. This is not a new strategy - it has been central to US operations in Iraq for a long while. But, according to retired Gen Jack Keane, who advised the White House on these plans, the manner of its implementation will be new.

"We're going to secure the population for the first time," he said. "What we've never been able to do in the past is have enough forces to stay in those neighbourhoods and protect the people." "Much of '07", he added, "will be spent getting Baghdad under control." And in 2008, said Gen Keane, the same process would be repeated in Anbar province, where the Sunni insurgency remains active and lethal.

But this strategy for securing the Iraqi capital is heavily dependent on the willingness and ability of the Iraqi government and armed forces to confront and disarm insurgents and militias.This means that Iraqi and US troops could find themselves fighting the militia of Moqtada Sadr - the largest, most powerful and the most murderous of the Shia groups, and one which controls much of eastern Baghdad. The potential for increased violence here is very great.

The president's speech was notably lacking in diplomatic initiatives. The recommendations of the Iraq Study group - that America engage Iran and Syria immediately and seek their support in stabilising Iraq - were nowhere to be seen. Instead, Mr Bush took a very confrontational tone.
He reminded Americans - and Iranians - that he had ordered an additional aircraft carrier strike group to the waters of the Gulf.

And he said the US would "seek out and destroy" networks that were providing advanced weaponry to America's enemies in Iraq. This appears to be a reference to Iranian covert operations groups which, US intelligence officials say, are operating in southern Iraq. Many members of the Democratic Party - who just last week took power in both houses of Congress - have expressed opposition to the president's plan.

Some Republicans, notably Senators Sam Brownback and Norm Coleman, have also split with the president.
The Democratic leadership has demanded the president consult with them before implementing his plan - something he seems unlikely to do. Short of cutting off funding for the Iraq war - an extremely aggressive step the Democrats are unwilling to take - there is little they can do to stop Mr Bush now.
President Bush is embarking on a new course in Iraq with a great many attendant dangers and something far short of unanimous political support at home.

He is isolated, but emphatic that Iraq must not be lost. His new strategy in Iraq is an intensification of America's role and depends heavily on Prime Minister Maliki to deliver. It appears to place many more American soldiers in harm's way for an indeterminate period. It appears to entirely disregard any and all pressure from the Democrats and ordinary Americans to begin scaling down America's presence in Iraq.

Let's also not forget that just this past summer Israel was engaged in military skirmishes to its northern border with Lebanon, fighting a group known as Hezbollah (Party of God), an Islamic terrorist militia backed by Iran and Syria. One can only hope that the sanctions implemented recently by the United Nations on Iran in reference to its nuclear ambitions will take hold. But as it always is with the United Nations, it's just the usual slap on the wrist.

It goes something like this: for 15 years Russia has been supplying oil and gas to its former Soviet brethren at far below market rates. But these days many of its neighbours are no longer all that friendly to their one-time elder brother.

First it was Ukraine, then Georgia and now, it seems, Belarus. Moscow has decided that its generosity is being abused, and so it is time for the largesse to end. Last winter it imposed large price hikes on natural gas to Ukraine. On the eve of 2007, it became the turn of Belarus to pay a more realistic price.
Overnight the cost of natural gas to Minsk was nearly doubled.

When it comes to oil, Moscow is even more upset. It claims the cheap crude it sends to Belarus is being refined there, and then resold as petrol and diesel at market rates. From the Kremlin's point of view, the Belarusian government is enriching itself at Moscow's expense.

So last week the Russian government decided to impose an export tariff on the crude oil it sends to its erstwhile ally. It looks like a harsh way to treat a one-time friend. But Russia's actions could hardly be described as illegal, or even unjustified. Even Monday's pipeline shutdown can be explained in a rational way.

Russia says Belarus has begun stealing large quantities of oil from the pipeline - nearly 80,000 tonnes in the last few days. Russia's deputy trade minister described the shutdown as "force-majeure", something Russia is very reluctant to do, but has no other choice.

But looked at it another way, one cannot help feeling there is something very deliberate about the way Russia has precipitated this latest crisis. That still begs the question - why? Why further jeopardise Russia's own reputation as a reliable partner and energy supplier for the rest of Europe.

Why deliberately destabilise a neighbouring country?

Is it simply that the Kremlin has had enough of its cantankerous and authoritarian neighbour? Is Moscow just tired of seeing its cheap oil being used to profit a regime that refuses to embrace economic reform and is increasingly unfriendly towards its erstwhile big brother? Or does the Kremlin have bigger political designs upon Belarus